Suffragettes are not forgotten

Ed Patenaude So I’ve Heard

Thursday

Aug 20, 2009 at 12:01 AM

The Webster Women’s Club, organized Oct. 9, 1916, may have been a somewhat limited guise to promote women’s suffrage, one of its longtime members, the late Marion Haggerty Norton, concluded in 1956, when she was called upon to present a 40th anniversary history of the organization.

Mrs. Norton, a longtime reporter and editor for the Webster Times, mostly when the newspaper was an afternoon daily, tied the fledging World War I-era club to the tumultuous time in history when women proved themselves capable political operatives.

Women’s suffrage, the right of women to participate in and vote in governmental elections, wasn’t in the Webster club’s bylaws, but the national rights movement occupied many in the club from its 1916 charter to ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on Aug. 26, 1920 — 89 years ago this week. While its membership seemed solidly in support of women’s rights, the club had a group of suffragettes, including charter president Mary F. Clarke. Miss Clarke, daughter of Webster-Southbridge District Court Judge Henry J. Clarke, subsequently married William Grosse and relocated to Florida.

The wait by the Women’s Club for franchise was less than four years. “Some of our younger members doubtless find it difficult to realize that only those few years ago women had to fight for a right to vote and to participate in government,” Mrs. Norton said in reviewing early history of the Webster club in her 40th anniversary presentation.

The club’s first venture into municipal affairs was modest. The town cemetery in East Village was without an official name and was known generally by its location: the East Village or East Webster Cemetery. This led to some confusion, and the first town meeting subsequent to suffrage asked the women’s group for assistance. Acreage for the cemetery had once been a part of Samuel Slater’s Mount Zion Farm, and it was one of the Slater family’s early gifts to the town. Designating the town-managed burial grounds as Mount Zion Cemetery was the club’s first governmental action.

Incidentally, the Slater farm was a major enterprise, running from North Village to East Village and beyond, with a large dairy herd, gardens, barns on Thompson Road and nearby Slater Street, and at least three dwellings for overseers, not including Mr. Slater’s farmhouse at what is now the self-serve gasoline station at Routes 12, 16 and 193.

Webster Moderators Telesphore R. Leboeuf and David J. Sullivan, in office through the 40 years after the 19th Amendment became law, paid heed to women’s rights in appointing special committees, Mrs. Norton found. Franchise and opportunities to serve on municipal committees were overriding issues with the Webster Women’s Club suffragettes, but contesting for public office wasn’t an immediate concern. This came with time, and after several failed attempts. Town Clerks Pearl C. Mahon of Webster and Lillian G. Dwyer of Dudley are believed to be the first women elected to office in their respective towns, although library trustees were elected in Webster before women’s suffrage was approved. Special legislation apparently made that legal.

Lucia R. Bartlett was the first Webster woman to run for an office previously denied to her gender. She garnered 1,175 votes for Board of Health in 1921. Dr. John E. LaBonte, the incumbent, was returned to office with 1,312 votes. A scan of the 89 years since the approval of women’s suffrage indicates that a lot of women have held national and state offices, but, to stay with local politics, the numbers have only become significant in recent times.

Irene A. Martel was a full-time elected assessor before she became the first woman elected to a Webster Board of Selectmen in 1982. She was in office through May of this year, becoming one of the longest-serving selectmen in town history. The late Norma Cash-Smith was the first woman to serve as a Dudley selectman. While a number of women have served on the Board of Selectmen in Webster, including Linda D. Kijowski, Constance V. Czechowski and, currently, Deborah A. Keefe, Mrs. Martel’s election gives younger women with a political bent something to strive for. And, yes, the author of the 1956 Women’s Club piece subsequently became the first woman elected to a Webster School Committee.

Jo-Ann Szymczak gives Dudley Board of Selectmen and its assessor’s panel a woman’s guidance, a role once filled by Shirley Bennett-Kilian and now shared by Nancy Runkle, the newest Dudley selectman. The Dudley list also includes Town Clerk Ora E. Finn and one of her predecessors, Freda Lambros; and Regional School Committee members Catherine M. Kabala, one of the town’s veteran officers, and Pauline L. Aucoin. Two of Dudley’s cemetery commissioners, Maureen Bounds and Margaret Bibeau, were taken by death in recent times, and the board’s functions were subsequently transferred to the Board of Selectmen, leaving Elaine M. Jean as the last elected former commissioner.

The Webster Women’s Club, with members from Webster and Dudley, faded from the scene in recent times and is no longer on the roster of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of Massachusetts. For an add to Mrs. Norton’s 1956 look at women’s suffrage, women are taking increasingly important roles in Webster-Dudley government, as evidenced by the numbers working full time and serving part time with local agencies. This will probably be reflected in more women contesting for more offices on more ballots in the decades to come.

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